Chapter Six
Her heart was beating absurdly quickly as she made her way up the stairs and down the hall the following day to the duke’s chambers. She was escorted by Dot, who was thrilled to be charged with the errand.
They paused in the hall and peered down it.
At the end of it was an anteroom attached to the duke’s room, fronted by heavy double doors, both sides open. They could see the man himself at a great table, illuminated by the sunlight from the large arched window as if he were onstage.
“I’m fine from here. Thank you, Dot.”
“Good luck!” Dot said. And then, touchingly, she gave her elbow a little squeeze. “I shall return at four, Miss Wylde. It’s when he likes a bit of tea.”
It was an anteroom of sorts that must have been a library a century or so ago, when the building was new. Shelves were built into the wall.
He glanced up and saw her framed in the doorway.
“Buonasera, Miss Wylde. I commend you on your punctuality. You are, in fact, a few minutesearly. I am just replying to some correspondence from my solicitor.”
Behind him sat a handsome brass and wood clock about a foot tall. Its face was pale, and black roman numerals marched around it. A brass pendulum swung back and forth inside it.
“Buonasera, Your Grace.Grazie.I wasn’t certain how long the journey from the house to this suite would take. I shouldn’t like to be flogged for tardiness.”
“You’ll be grateful to learn that we no longer flog for tardiness in the military.” He sounded abstracted. He didn’t look up from the sentence he was inscribing. “We put men on the rack. Or tell their mothers.”
She smiled cautiously.
He swept one hand out without looking at her. “If you’ll take the seat opposite me, I shall just be a moment.”
She settled in, gingerly.
Folded her hands, primly.
She watched his quill fly across the page like a living thing, darting and leaping to make letters. She was a little sleepy from her midday meal and it was soothing, almost mesmeric, to watch. Two miniatures were propped on stands in frames on his table, a pretty dark-haired woman and a young man who looked like a precise blend of the duke and the pretty, dark-haired woman. She wondered whether he had ever taken his family to the seashore, or if he had always been off fighting.
It seemed odd and possibly a little dangerousto be so close to him. He was something better appreciated from a distance, like a gryphon. If he turned, his shoulders would all but block the sun from the window.
Next to him was a stack of foolscap. She peered at it. Across the page on top were the words “Chapter Two.” It thus far seemed to be comprised of about three sentences, several scratched out words, and small drawings.
“I see you’ve drawn... a little horse, and a flower of some sort. And is that... is that meant to be a dog?”
He smacked his left hand lightly down on the foolscap and pushed it aside, all the while continuing to write. He hadn’t even looked up.
“The horse and dog looked rather similar. Perhaps if you made the horse’s tail a bit fluffier?”
He cast a swift but potently baleful glance upward at her, then re-dipped his quill and continued his correspondence.
“Three sentences only. Chapter Two must be the one where you reminisce about all your pleasurable pursuits.”
She wondered just how much piss-taking she could get away with when it came to a duke.
He ignored this while he sprinkled sand on the letter and pushed it aside, too.
And then sat back and directed the whole of his attention to her, one eyebrow arched as though he was assessing how to handle a recalcitrant subaltern.
Everything he did was brisk and precise. Shewas reminded of the time she’d witnessed a man loading a rifle, the sharp, swift, finite, methodical steps. She wondered if life was like that for the duke: he knew precisely each step to take, and when, and what the result would be.
How must that feel?
“So, Miss Wylde... how much Italian do you in truth speak or write, if any?”
